This is the third installment of a thirty-part series of articles by Frederick J. "Monte" Monteagle for the Martinez News-Gazette, written January - February, 1977. I'll publish each one as an individual blog post. MF
Environmental Horror
[This outstanding series on the felling of a magnificent Bay Area redwood forest 1853-55 in what is now mostly Redwood Regional Park is appearing periodically in installments.]
By MONTE MONTEAGLE
Installment 3
Transported into the past, a century and a quarter or so, present-day environmentalists and nature lovers would have viewed with distaste the sawmills steam-powered dotting the banks of Redwood Creek, chewing away at the virgin coast redwood growth in what is now Redwood Regional Park.
Continuing the tally of those primitive saw mills, these were the ownerships:
The Prince Mill, was situated at the head of Redwood Canyon and below Redwood Peak on 320 acres of school warrant land which could be acquired from the state for $1.25 an acre by thrifty millmen and was owned and operated by Brothers Thomas B. and William C. Prince. The Princes owned redwood acreage from ridge to ridge and operated the mill during the period 1852-56. They were 'fortyniners and nephews of Elam Brown, early-day Contra Costa county settler credited with being the "father" of Lafayette.
[Read about how
the Prince mill was in Elk Horn, CA. - MF]
The Spicer Mill as it was afterward to be known, was near the Prince Mill and was erected by Josiah Witherell and Nathaniel Lamson [sometimes Lampson - MF] about 1852. Land litigation began almost immediately with the Prince Brothers and in a forced sale, Luther Mills and James Vantine took over. They in turn, sold out to Henry Spicer. This mill, reportedly, had a capacity of 9000 board feet of lumber a day. In the 1853 election, a voting precinct was established at the mill.
The Tupper and Hamilton Mill was established on 350 acres at the lower end of mouth or mouth of Redwood Canyon and the proprietors were Chester Tupper and Richard Hamilton. The mill burned down in 1854.
The Eagar and Brown Mill was established about 1854, costing in the vicinity of $10,000 and reportedly had a capacity of 12,000 board feet of lumber a day. The lands of Thomas Eagar and Erasmus D. Brown apparently overlapped, and rather than litigate the matter, they formed a profitable partnership. Eagar, a native of Osining, N.Y., came to California in 1846 with Sam Brannan's party aboard the ship "Brooklyn" and twice served in the legislature as an Assemblyman from Santa Cruz and Alameda counties and was an also Alameda County Supervisor in 1856.
He is credited with being one of the first Americans to explore Contra Costa County (the "opposite shore"). He married Angelina Tupper. In 1854, the Eagar and Brown Mill was hauling finished redwood to the San Antonio wharf in East Oakland to be sold for $25 to $35 a thousand.
The Thorne Mill was a costly $20,000 affair situated in the Moraga Redwoods. It was owned by Hiram Thorne and William Hamilton and erected in 1852. The company controlled a road leading to the village of Clinton in what is now East Oakland.
The Taylor and Owens Mill, founded by William H. Taylor and James Owens,
operated during the period 1849-51 and was situated in the Moraga Redwoods
about where the old Sacramento Northern Railroad's Pinehurst Station was
built.
The Moses Davis Mill also operated in the area - probably the Moraga Redwoods - but information about it has has proved elusive.
Likewise, only fragmentary information exists relating to the Lewis Mill which, according to one 1923 account "stood not far from what became Joaquin Miller's "Hights."
Coursing through the center of the "middle redwoods" (now Redwood Regional Park) was Redwood Creek which normally was hidden from view by logs, bark, shavings and rubbish thrown over it to form a road but which, after heavy rains, was "swollen into a wild, turbid roaring brook which sweeps over the road..."
[Next: "Judge Lynch" rides. The "redwood boys" or "redwood rangers" swing into action during the period 1854-55 and, using the East Bay redwoods as a staging area, visit summary and retributive justice against alleged horse and cattle thieves. Four are hung.]
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